Daily Archives: September 18, 2009

Tape and Mirrors, the artist’s third solo exhibition in New York, will open on Friday September 25th, 2009.

The public reception from 7-10pm. The exhibition will be on view weekly Wednesdays through Sundays from 12pm-7pm until October 25th, 2009.

Eastern District is a contemporary exhibition space located at 43 Bogart Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn. They pride themselves on the merging of all creative artistic practices and presenting the community with art exhibitions as well as ongoing performance and event-based programming. Eastern District is excited to be presenting Tape and Mirrors with Ad Hoc Art. Ad Hoc, formerly located at 49 Bogart Street, is a staple in the Bushwick art community that has dedicated itself for years to being more than just a gallery. Ad Hoc is a passionate creative fulcrum, showing work that is often marginalized by the larger New York art scene. This collaboration is the second of many to come, continuing to build the local art community to another level.

Aakash Nihalani’s street work consists mostly of isometric rectangles and squares. Using brightly colored tape, Nihalani selectively places these graphics around New York to highlight the unexpected contours and elegant geometry pre-existing in the city itself. All execution of his street-level tape work is done on site, with little to no planning.

For however brief of a time, Aakash Nihalani’s work offers people a chance to see a different side of New York, and momentarily escape from their routine schedules and lives. “We all need the opportunity to see the city more playfully, as a world dominated by the interplay of very basic color and shape”. He tries to create a new space within the existing space of our everyday world for people to enter freely and to unexpectedly ‘disconnect’ from their reality.

Playing off of the metaphor ‘smoke and mirrors,’ meaning an illusion created out of an elaborate distraction, Nihalani’s Tape and Mirrors exhibition aims to create a magical experience out of the mundane. By implementing mirrors in key positions throughout the space, the viewer is given an opportunity to step ‘into,’ and view themselves within, Nihalani’s signature tape installations. Creating a playful interruption to the regular gallery schematic, the viewer is prodded from being a bystander to a participant, not only interacting with the space and materials around them, but also with their own reflections.

Let Nihalani’s Tape and Mirrors open up a new portal of reality and experience yourself between dimensions at Eastern District & Ad Hoc Art in Brooklyn.

Original prints and paintings by the artist will also be on view and for sale through the gallery.

To find out more information about Aakash Nihalani’s Tape and Mirrors exhibition, and more about Ad Hoc and Eastern District’s collaboration please go to adhocart.org and eastern-district.com.